February in Review

Since I'm such a slacker in the blogging area of life, I am now having to write reviews of not days or weeks, but entire months instead. Hey, at least it's not a year in review, yet!

February brought some sickness, loved ones coming and going, tons of snow, and lots of fun.

Matt went out of town for four days the first week of February. This marked the third time in two months at his new job. To say that I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed---well that'd be accurate. But mostly only because somebody (usually more than one) always gets sick or hurt while he's gone. It amazes me how these things work out, but I digress.

Anyway, he was coming home on the 7th, but he wasn't going to be back in time for Peach's music program. This made us all sad, but luckily I recorded all of it for daddy to see. Additionally, a much beloved aunt came to town that very day. And it was a total surprise for all of us. My mom asked me to run out to her car for something, and when I stepped onto my porch my sister jumped out in front of me. I got a little teary-eyed I was so excited. I haven't seen her since before Hunk was born!

She came in to see the kiddos who were home (the younger four), and met her nephew for the very first time. I had to capture it!

HA! I just realized they kind of match in this photo... totally not planned!

Shortly thereafter, the big girls got off the bus and were surprised when they saw auntie standing on our stairs.

We did make it to the music concert that evening. Peach did great. They sang several songs, and we all enjoyed watching her shine.

The snow days came after the holiday. We had so many days off from school between parent teacher conferences, illness, and snow days. A week after V-day, the girls all had a snow day. We knew it was coming because the meteorologists were saying how big it was going to be for a week before the storm hit. Even store shelves were bare. By the look of things, it was the end of the world, but thank God we all survived. haha!

Since I had some prior knowledge that we'd be snowed in for a few days, I stocked up on some fun.

 This is what we woke up to early Thursday morning.

 I threw in a game, some activity packs, sandcastle building supplies (they work in snow just as well), and I pulled some stuff from our pantry like hot cocoa mix and chocolate chips (to note that we would make hot cocoa and cookies).

 Getting all bundled up.

 The snow was falling at about an inch per hour that morning.

 Ready for fun in the snow.

She makes me laugh--like all the time!

 It's exhausting watching sisters play.

 Heading out to the snow again.

My big-eyed boy.

Lots of fun for this cutie.

She's never really seen much snow. So this was all a first for our Scrunchie!

This one and I always surprise attack each other with snowballs.

 Dad stayed busy, too!

Snow angel.

 Obsessed with making snow angels.

Happy to be out in the fun snow!

 A tiny hill in our yard provided quite the entertainment!

And we had Friday off as well. The two big girls and I went sledding with one of Brownie's sweet friends and her dad.

 His family has a great hill, and I will say it was the first time I'd ever really gone sledding in my entire life. I've played in the snow plenty of times, but I had never really gone sledding. So much fun!! Thank goodness there's no video of my super awesome wipe out that I was nearly certain ripped my shoulder out of socket. Actually it felt much better a few minutes after my tumble, but I was a little worried at first. I don't think 30 year olds should tumble down the hill for recreation--or at least not this 30 yr old!


The snow thawed that weekend, but news came about another storm that was supposed to hit Sunday night. Well, that didn't pan out, so the kids all had school on Monday. But as Monday evening rolled in, the news was reporting another major storm with strong winds. So we played outside Monday night before we'd be stuck inside another day. Daddy built us a Mickey Mouse snowman.

 The after-mess!

This one started off as a storm that was supposed to be worse than the previous one. Schools canceled Monday night for Tuesday, and when everybody woke up, we were all thinking they blew one. But we had fun anyway. We even had a candlelight dinner on Monday night.

 Poor Hunk had to just sit back and enjoy the snow show. I also enjoyed the exercise that came with shoveling the driveway--sorry, no pictures of that!

Scrunchie also had a birthday. She turned two, but I'll write about that in another post.